The House That Time Forgot, Regression Regrets
by VictorianChik
Summary: Set in the summer when Harry is 16, Harry is hit by an odd curse and has to spend time healing and trying not to kill Snape as the potion master nurses him back to health. Warning: spanking of a teenager and medical needles.
1. Box

An: Here is another story from the House That Time Forgot series. Thanks to Fawkes Song, my faithful and fast beta.

For those of you who are confused, I changed my name on here, but I'm still the same old writer, chugging through grad school.

Thanks for reading!

HP&HP&HP&HP&HP&HP&HP

A knock sounded on the door.

Frowning, Snape put his book down. Harry had gone to the Weasleys for three days, and he was expected back this evening. That meant the house had been quiet for seventy-two hours, even though Harry wasn't as noisy at sixteen as he had been at twelve.

However, had Harry been in the house, he would have answered the door as he loved having visitors, even the occasional lost hiker. Harry would sometimes accompany the knockers down the lane, always chatting with them. Snape was furious each time, thinking it could be a trap, but Harry never stopped to consider the possible evilness of whoever showed up at the door. True, Harry was under wards and a secret keeper's protection, but still. The boy had no sense of self-protection.

Snape opened the door cautiously.

On the other side was the local policeman from the village . . . and Harry.

"Does this belong to you?" the policeman motioned to Harry.

Harry's shoulders were slouched, and his cheeks were flushed red, and he was shaking. "I'm fine," Harry managed between bluish lips. "I was making my way here but Jeff here was kind enough to help me the last bit. It was a short walk."

The policeman shook his head, and behind him, the small police car was still running. "I found him stumbling down the road, carrying a broomstick," Jeff said, holding up the broomstick. "Odd looking contraption. I thought he was drunk, but I think he's sick."

"I'm not sick," Harry wrapped his hands around himself tightly. "I'm special and I don't get sick ever. Getting sick is for other people who aren't me."

"Thank you, sir," Snape put a hand on Harry's shoulder and guided him inside, taking the broomstick with the other hand. "I'll put him to bed right away. I'm sorry he caused you so much trouble."

"No problem. You have a nice day," the policeman went back to his car.

"I'm not going to bed," Harry stumbled inside. "I want to go flying. I want water."

"What happened to you? You were supposed to be at the Weasleys."

"I was," Harry leaned against the wall, his cheeks hectic red against the cream of the walls. "Ron and I went into the woods and we found this box. It was wooden and all carved and interesting. We couldn't open it and we thought about taking it home when Ron said we should use wands –"

"You're underage!"

"I know," Harry nodded ruefully. "We should have taken it to the Burrow, but then Mr. Weasley would have confiscated it. So I used my wand because you always insist I take it with me –"

"In case you get attacked, not to open magically-sealed boxes!" Snape's voice rang through the hall.

Harry winced at his loud tone. "I know. But I thought no one would know because we were at the Weasleys. I did the opening spell, and it – um . . . hit us."

Snape said nothing, and Harry dropped his gaze.

"We – uh – made it back to the house, but the family was out on errands so Ron went to lie down and I used floo-powder. But I said the wrong house because I was coughing, and it blew me out at the grocer's in the village. I had no idea he was a wizard. He heard me, but I ran out the back before he could see me. I was walking back, but the policeman wouldn't leave me alone. He said I was acting funny and he made me get in the car. Oh, everything hurts."

Harry leaned back against the wall. His whole body was throbbing and tingling painfully.

"You wretched brat," Snape said between ground teeth. "Will you never gain any sense at all?"

Harry looked at him, aggrieved. "If you're going to be like that, I'm leaving."

Harry didn't move.

"I'm going. I'm leaving forever. Look at me, walking out the door."

Harry didn't budge from the wall.

"Am – am I moving yet?"

Snape shook his head.

Harry's eyes got big behind his glasses. "Snape – Snape, I can't move. I'm trying, but I can't move myself. I'm paralyzed."

Quick as a flash, Snape stepped forward and heaved the boy over his shoulder.

Panicking, Harry stared down at the floor while he was carried upstairs. "I can't move at all. What's happening to me? Oh, no, no, I can't move!"

"Yet your mouth keeps going," Snape muttered. "We're getting to the bottom of this, I promise you, and a little paralysis will be the worst of your problems. You think about that."

Harry tried to keep breathing calmly, but it was an awful sensation, not being able to move his own body.

Once they were upstairs, Snape laid him on the bed and rolled him on his back. Vampyr was beside the bed, barking worriedly.

Snape put a hand on Harry's forehead and then took his glasses off.

"I can't see either!" Harry panicked.

"You can't ever see without your glasses," Snape reminded him. "Be quiet a second and let me figure out what's wrong with you." He put his thumb and forefinger at the bottom and top of Harry's right eye, widening it slightly. "Your pupils are dilated. You're burning with fever. Think, Harry, when the box exploded, what kind of explosion came out of it? Bright light? Smoke? Fire? A sharp pop?"

"It was light that snapped really loud and then disappeared. I felt a weird tingle go over me. But then it disappeared."

Snape frowned and put Harry's glasses back on his face, and the world came into focus again.

A noise sounded downstairs. "Severus Snape!" Mrs. Weasley's voice crackled. "Where are you?"

"Don't move," Snape said out of habit as he left the room.

"I can't," Harry looked up at the ceiling in despair. Why did everything awful happen to him?

Snape was downstairs for a few minutes and then he came back with a black bag of potions, his face under tight control.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked. "What did Mrs. Weasley say?"

"She fire-called me," Snape set the bag on the bureau and started rutting through it. "Ronald's in a coma. They took him to St. Mungo's."

"What?" Harry felt the blood drain from his face. "I have to go help Ron."

He turned his head to the side and strained to move, but nothing happened.

"Don't worry," Snape kept pulling bottles and vials out of the bag. "The doctors there are qualified to help him. I'm not taking you there because it would expose you, and those doctors and healers would want to run tests on you to see what makes the Chosen One so special."

Harry's eyes widened again. He had never thought the wizard community would want to do medical experiments on him, but he thought about how eager Madame Pomfrey seemed to be to help him whenever he went to the hospital ward. He had always thought she was a fussy nurse, but had she been interested in him because of what he was, what he had endured, what was marked on his forehead?

"This will help," Snape turned from the bureau, a long syringe in his hand, the glass vial filled with blood-red potion.

Harry stared at the shot, the long stretch of thick needle. "You're not sticking that into me. I'll swallow a potion, but you are not sticking needles into me."

"I made this concoction the autumn after you came here," with his free hand, Snape rolled Harry on his side and began tugging up his shirt. "It's a potion that freezes any ailment you have, stopping the sickness long enough for me to figure out what's wrong with you in order to heal you. I thought it would come in handy, considering all the scrapes you find yourself in," Snape pulled his trousers down a few inches.

"No, don't," Harry pleaded.

Snape made no reply. Steadying Harry with one hand, he used the other to press the needle into Harry's pale skin and emptied the contents of the syringe slowly.

"Ow, ow, it hurts," Harry complained. It was unnerving to feel pain in his hip and be unable to move at all. "Take it out. I don't like shots. It hurts!"

"It will hurt a lot more before we're done," Snape warned. "There we go, all done."

He rolled Harry back over, and Harry glared at him. "You're a potions master. You're supposed to give me disgusting potions to drink – you're not supposed to stick needles into me. I'm telling Dumbledore."

"I'm trembling with fear," Snape retorted. "You're the biggest baby when you get sick."

"I'm not sick. I'm cursed. Everything bad happens to me. Anyone else would have opened the box and found candy inside or gold or something nice. What if Ron never comes out of a coma? What if something happens to him and it's all my fault?"

"That is entirely possible," Snape was heartless. "Next time you'll think before you start using illegal magic. This part is going to hurt too."

Snape held up a vial of what looked like a black slug. He took Harry's limp right arm, rolled up his sleeve, and tipped the black, slimy thing onto his skin. "It's a magical leech."

Harry stared at the thing, horrified as it lay on his skin, just above the crook of his elbow. And then it bit him. It stung and he couldn't shake it off, and he couldn't move as that nasty thing started to suck on his blood. "What's it doing?"

"It is charmed to suck on infected blood if you have any," Snape explained. "Just relax and let it do its job. I'm going to be running other tests on you, and I want you to breathe slowly, in and out."

Harry wanted to argue, if only for the sake of distracting himself from what was happening to his arm, but he looked up at the ceiling and tried to focus on breathing.

Had he not been paralyzed, the diagnosis part might have been interesting because Snape did things that Harry had never seen before. The potions master flung a handful of blue powder over Harry, but instead of falling, the powder hovered in the air over him, arranged in patterns of long lines. When Snape held up the empty vial, the powder swarmed back inside, leaving a trail of blue mist that quickly disappeared.

Snape had a clock thing with knobs and screws that he put at the base of Harry's throat. It felt cold and then it started whirling. Snape studied the dial intently, watching the measurements that Harry could not see.

Next, Snape pulled out a metal device. It reminded Harry of the brass knuckles he had seen in Muggle movies, and Snape put it on his right hand, fitting the device up on his fingers, over his knuckles. But instead of metal ridges on the end, there were four sharp points on the end, thicker than most needles, but sharpened to glinting points at the end.

"No, absolutely not," Harry watched the thing fearfully. "You don't need to use that. You have the leech and you need to give it time to do its job. Don't use that on me."

"The hero of the wizarding world can't take a simple diagnostic test," Snape rolled his eyes. He reached for Harry's other arm.

Harry tried to move, but nothing happened. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, but something cool touched his arm. He opened his eyes to see Snape swiping his arm with a tiny cloth.

"Rubbing alcohol to clean it properly," Snape explained. "Stay very still for this."

Snape was evil, no doubt about it. Harry watched in fear as Snape turned his right hand knuckle-down, and the four points came closer to Harry's bare arm. Harry had never reflected on how vulnerable the skin just above the underside of his wrist was. It was nice, smooth skin that never wanted needles near it – nice skin that had never done anything to deserve what was about to happen.

Snape popped his wrist down, and Harry felt a sharp stab of pain, and then Snape stepped back, taking off the metal device. The four needles were shiny red with blood, and Snape unscrewed each needle from the knuckles and dropped them into four separate vials.

Four red spots of blood had risen up on Harry's arm, but Snape dampened another cloth and rubbed it over his arm. The blood disappeared, and Harry felt relief sweep over him.

"Please let that be all," he closed his eyes in exhaustion.

"You really are pathetic," Snape said as he went back to the bag. "A few needles, and our hero turns into a whiny baby. You fought the Dark Lord and sustained countless injuries."

"That was different. I could move then. Had I been paralyzed, I would have been screaming. Remind me to never fight Voldemort when I can't move."

A strange look came over Snape's face. "If you ever touch another object without knowing what it is, I will give you every potion in shot-form," he threatened. "Every night for the rest of your life on top of whatever other punishment I give you."

"It was just a wooden box in a field," Harry looked away. "Ron wanted to set fire to it. Go call Mrs. Weasley and see how he's doing. We should be there with him."

"St. Mungo's can handle him. She said she would call me if there was any change. We have you to worry about now. I think the leech is full."

Snape pulled it off, but the thing pinched as Snape removed it, and blood trickled down Harry's arm.

"You could have used that blood and not the knuckles thing," Harry said as Snape cleaned up his arm.

"The leech contaminates any blood it touches," Snape put the leech in a vial full of clear liquid. The vial turned black.

"Oh, no," Snape shook his head. He put the vial down and placed his hands on the bureau, slumping his head down between his shoulder blades for a moment.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked nervously. "What is it?"

Snape straightened and looked at him. "Once I get you better, you're getting the licking of your life. You're not going to be able to sit for a month."

"So I will live," Harry felt a little more relieved. "Ron, too, I hope. What do we have?"

"The box was booby-trapped with a strain of wizard pox."

"I don't know what that is," Harry admitted. "Is it anything like smallpox? Chicken pox?"

"It's a disease that regresses your muscles back to their early stages. After the paralysis wears off, you have to relearn to use your muscles. You learn to sit up, roll over, crawl, walk, and eventually run."

"Like a toddler!" Harry's mouth fell open. "It turns you into a baby!"

"Not completely. It just regresses your body for a time."

"For how long!" Harry shrieked. "How long does it take?"

"Anywhere from two weeks to two months."

"What!" Harry was so loud that Vampyr got up from the floor where he had been watching the proceedings with anxious eyes. "The whole summer?"

"Maybe less. It depends on the person. You're young and somewhat healthy. Mr. Weasley will wake up soon, paralyzed like you and go through the same thing. But you performed the spell on the box so the majority of the curse hit you. He'll be better before you are. He's in a coma because you were the one conducting the magic."

"Not fair," Harry leaned back.

"You want Mr. Weasley to be just as sick as you? Very Gryffindor of you."

"Don't you twist my words," Harry glared at him. "I want us both to be well. Can't we make this thing go faster?"

"Well, now that I know what it is – that it won't kill you – I'll give you something to counteract the shot I gave you. Otherwise the disease will keep you paralyzed longer."

Snape reached into the bag and took out another long syringe. He stuck the needle tip into a vial of blue serum and began filling up the glass tube. "I'll give it to you in your other hip."

"Why didn't you do the leech first? Now I have to take two shots."

"Yes, you do. I didn't know what the disease was or how fast it was working. This is what happens when you play around with strange boxes."

"You've got to be kidding me," Harry closed his eyes. "What did I do to deserve this? This isn't fair."

"I agree entirely," Snape rolled him to the side and pulled up his shirt. "And in the next few weeks, you're going to think 'unfair' more than once. You do realize that this means I have to carry you around and feed you."

Harry groaned in despair and braced himself for the shot.


	2. Decisions

"Only you could get yourself into such a predicament," Snape observed.

Harry didn't respond. He tried to look angry, ticked off, and about to explode. He concentrated on looking furious to keep his panic down. The feeling of not being able to move was terrifying. He would have gladly faced Voldemort at that moment, blind-folded and weaponless, as long as he could move. It wasn't fair, and it was awful, and he couldn't give into tears because Snape would point out how it was all Harry's fault and then Harry would have to attack Snape, but he couldn't move so that made it even worse.

"Don't worry. I have a plan," Snape looked confident and smug.

Any other time Harry would have felt reassured by Snape's self-confidence, but at the moment, Harry concentrated on not slipping into despair. He wasn't strong enough to keep himself together. All those years of plodding on, feeling sure that he could face anything that the universe threw at him, believing in himself and his friends and his magic and his destiny – it all ended with him being unable to move.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Snape demanded. "Where are your cheeky comments about my meager skills? You've never missed a chance to talk back to me."

"Not now," Harry looked up at the ceiling.

Snape frowned, annoyed. "Look here, young man, I've put up with a great deal of nonsense from you, but if you think I'm going to endure your quiet acceptance of your fate, you are quite mistaken. You lapse into silence and look all woebegone, then I'll give you something to talk about."

Before Harry could reply, Snape swept out of the room and stomped down the stairs.

"Of all the nerve, getting himself hexed," Snape grumbled. "He's deliberately provoking me now."

He started the fire, threw the floo powder down, and called out irritably, "Minerva, Minerva!"

It took Professor McGonagall nearly two minutes to appear in the fire. "Dear heavens, Severus, do you have any idea what time it is here?"

"I don't care."

"I'm researching in Tibet and it's the middle of the night here," she scowled. "I thought the hut was on fire."

"I need to talk to you."

"Mph!" she pursued her lips, looking her most schoolmarm-ish. "Do you not care what I'm researching in Tibet, in the middle of a remote village?"

"Magic?" he raised his eyebrows sarcastically.

"You're insufferable. What's Harry done now?"

"He hexed himself and got wizard pox."

"Severus Snape! You didn't have him vaccinated?"

"That's Pomfrey's department."

"If his family didn't sign the consent form in his first year, he didn't get it."

"Well, Poppy should have followed up with that," Snape insisted. "She's in charge of everyone's health, including our famous little wizard."

"You adopted him. Shouldn't you be the one looking after Harry?"

"He comes of age in a month. He should have some common sense by now."

McGonagall's lips twitched, but she only said, "Why did you call me? I assume you wanted more than to simply complain about Harry."

"I can handle wizard pox," Snape crossed his arms. "If the boy gives me any trouble, I'll make him sleep the whole summer until it wears off."

"Severus," McGonagall looked disapproving, the way she had when Snape was her student. The years since he had first seen that expression had worn well, and she could put almost anyone in their right place by giving them the look.

"I can speed up the progress, but it's painful," Snape said. "It will hurt him."

"How bad?"

"With the right potions and magic, it could be over in two days. But the whole time would be like a mild dose of the Cruciatus Curse."

"No," the answer came immediately. "Don't speed it up. Get him to heal at a steady pace, but keep down his pain. That poor boy's been through enough. You are not torturing him needlessly."

"He might want it to go faster."

"Have you asked him?"

"No."

McGonagall considered for a moment. "You want me to tell you whether or not you should tell Harry that you could drastically speed up his recovery. You haven't told him."

Snape shook his head. "I think he should recover at his own pace. But I know if I told him, he would choose the pain and the speedy recovery."

"Could he bear the pain?"

"He could," Snape paused for a second. "I couldn't though."

"Then don't tell him. If you think he would choose something that would be unbearable for you to witness, you have to make the decision that is best for you. You are still in charge of him for the next month, and as the adult you have to make decisions for the both of you, not just him."

"He would want to recover quickly though."

"Well, this recovery time will help remind him not to open strange boxes."

Snape paused. "How – how did you know about that?"

McGonagall gave a small smile. "The Weasleys contacted me earlier. One of the prices of being a teacher – you never get to have a holiday. They weren't sure what Ronald had, but the doctors were still running tests. You figured it out rather quickly."

"Of course."

"You could become a medi-wizard – you know that," McGonagall's tone was straightforward and strict. "You could easily work at any wizard hospital. You hate grubby children, and you're a dreadful grouch sometimes. I have told you once, Severus Snape, and I will tell you again – your talents are wasted in the classroom when you were meant for -"

"Good day, Minerva," Snape drew back from the fire.

He paused for a few moments, and then went into the study area that Harry had goaded him into building the previous spring. He wasn't sure how the boy did it, but he had that incorrigible way about him that induced Snape to do things that he never had any intention of doing. Something about the brat's sad looks, and the way he lapsed into silence when he thought Snape was being unfair, and those bright green eyes that flickered up to him in concern – it frustrated Snape to no end. He had once thought about making Harry wear sunglasses at all times so he wouldn't see her eyes, those beautiful eyes of Lily that Harry had no right to possess, watching him, looking at him.

But he couldn't bring himself to hide those eyes, and he felt unnerved when Harry would sit across the kitchen table from him, talking avidly about his day, when suddenly Harry would look up at him. It was like Lily sat across the table watching him.

It frightened him to no end, how much he loved the boy who by all rights should be his son. He could have protected Lily better than her idiot husband, and she could have married him and Harry would look like a Snape instead of a Potter but still have Lily's eyes.

A slight moan came from upstairs. Vampyr padded to the top of the stairs and barked shortly to get Snape's attention.

"I'm coming," Snape assured the dog. "I need a few things, then I'll be right up."

The dog whined and kept glancing back to the bedroom. Anytime Harry got sick, Vampyr was anxious until he was up again, hale and healthy. The dog seemed to consider Harry as a brother for he never listened much to anything Harry told him to do, but the dog loved romping and playing until they were both worn out.

Snape felt guilty about how the dog had bitten Harry on the first night when Snape had kidnapped him from the Dursleys, and while the bite had done no lasting damage after Snape healed it, he had kept an eye on Vampyr to see that the dog didn't try to attack Harry again. Sometimes Snape thought the dog was too rough; Harry had grown stronger and taller under Snape's careful watch, but Vampyr could still rip the boy's throat out if he chose to do so.

Snape had once commented that he could shrink the dog to be a more manageable size.

"No, I can handle him," Harry had insisted. "Come on, boy – let's go out."

He had playfully growled at Vampyr and run outside. The dog had bounded out the door after him and tackled Harry in one leap, crushing the boy into the grass. Harry had started wrestling with the dog until they were both dirty and sweaty. Harry had torn his trousers and Snape had seen the dark red blood on his knees under the ripped fabric. Snape had given him a healing drought and resisted the urge to turn Vampyr into a lap dog until Harry got old enough to stop wrestling with animals.

But when Harry got sick, Vampyr became the gentlest of creatures, hyperaware of any movements or sounds that Harry made. The dog wouldn't budge from Harry's side until he saw that Snape had come to help and even then Vampyr would stand watch as if Harry were a small puppy. The only time that Vampyr was truly confused was when Snape punished Harry, and Vampyr seemed to sense the boy was in pain. The dog would look from Harry to Snape and whine anxiously when Harry had trouble sitting.

"He's alright," Snape had told the dog. "He's been naughty again and got what was coming to him."

"Shut up," Harry had snapped, reaching out to pet the dog. "Vampyr would attack you if I wanted him to."

"He would not."

"He might. And then we could rule the world, the greatest wizard ever and his dog with the heart of a dragon."

Snape had rolled his eyes and went to put away the short leather strap he had used on Harry for ignoring curfew three nights in a row.

Right now though, Vampyr paced at the top of the steps, worrying himself by watching Snape and looking back into the bedroom where Harry lay.

Snape looked over a few vials of potions, frowning at the labels. That had been Harry's chore last winter – helping Snape catalogue potions as detention for being caught out of bed yet again. Between Harry's bad handwriting and his inability to stick labels evenly onto the bottles, Snape thought a five-year-old would have been better help. He had criticized Harry's skills, and Harry had lost his temper and broken a vial of potion, and a yelling match had started which eventually led to the biggest scare of Snape's life, but that was another story to think about for another time. Right now, Harry was stuck up in his bed, unable to move because he had to open strange boxes like some kind of teenage Pandora.

Holding seven potions, Snape headed upstairs where Vampyr gave a relieved bark and trotted beside Snape into Harry's room.

Harry was lying where Snape had left him, but the boy's face was scrunched into a grimace of pain and one tear trickled out of the corners of his closed eyes.

Snape's heart hit his throat. "Harry! Harry, where does it hurt?"

"Dad?" Harry gulped as he opened his eyes.

"I'm here, son," Snape was by the bed in a second. "I'm going to help you – just tell me what's hurting."

"Take my right hand," Harry looked down at his motionless hand where it lay on the bed.

Feeling sick, Snape gently picked up Harry's limp hand, trying not to show his panic.

"Bend my fingers down a little," Harry blinked away tears. "Yeah, like a claw. Now bring my hand to my face. Closer, closer."

Snape pushed Harry's hand close to his face, nearly wild with fear at such a strange request.

Harry lifted his head off the pillow an inch, straining with the effort, and then he started grinding his nose into the edges of his fingernails.

"Oh, yes," Harry kept scratching his face with his limp fingers as Snape held his hand steady. "That was unbearable. I never thought not being able to scratch my nose would be such agony. Turn my hand a little and get my cheeks. That's good – now the other."

Disgusted, Snape dropped his hand on the bed.

"I wasn't through – I only got one cheek scratched. The other is killing me." Harry started wrinkling his face in a desperate attempt to relieve the itchiness that bothered him.

"I don't have time for this nonsense," Snape unbuttoned his sleeves and began rolling up his cuffs. "I'm going to force more movement into one of your hands so you can use it to itch or grab things or take care of . . . personal business. Do you want the left or right done?"

"The right, of course. But wait, if you can force movement into one of my hands, why can't you force it into all of me?"

Snape only hesitated for a second before answering, "It's very painful and –"

"I can take the pain."

"And it takes a special potion to do the whole body. I only have a little because of the one you broke this past year."

Harry's face grew serious. "I thought you said that potion was for slowing down time. Wouldn't you need one that sped time up?"

"Well, it works both ways," Snape was careful not to look at Harry as he uncorked one vial.

"It speeds up time and slows it down? How can it do both? How does it know to do both?"

"Because of the magic," Snape's tone was almost too dismissive. "I don't expect a silly boy like you to understand the subtleties of potions, not when you throw them to the floor in a fit of rage."

"I did that once!"

"That's enough. Upsetting yourself won't help. Swallow this."

Snape cut off any further wondering on Harry's part by forcing the opening of a vial to his lips and tipping it up. Harry nearly choked on the vile taste, but he gulped it down. Once he was done, Snape took a towel and wiped the corners of his mouth briskly.

"Open your mouth."

"I don't want any more potions," Harry complained, but he opened his mouth obediently.

Snape folded the other edge of the towel in half until it was an inch thick. He inserted the fold into Harry's mouth. "Bite down."

"Huh?" Harry said around the towel, his eyes wide with surprise.

"I don't want you cracking any teeth when I force the movement into your arm."

"I can take it," Harry said around the towel.

Snape didn't comment. Though he had no intentions of informing Harry, the potion was actually a pain-reliever that would counteract the violence he was about to inflict on the boy.

"I've had worse and –agh!"

Harry went silent as Snape touched the tip of his wand to Harry's hand. "_Reparo Nervorum_!"

White hot pain blazed in Harry's arm, just like the Cruciatus Curse. He clamped down on the towel, refusing to make a sound. Snape thought he was a weak, pitiful child who –

"_Reparo Nervorum_!" Snape commanded again. "_Reparo Nervorum_."

Snape kept saying the spell over and over, and Harry felt his eyes fill with tears. The pain went on and on, and he hated Snape, hated him so bad. Even getting tortured by Voldemort hadn't lasted this long, and the pain just kept going.

Vampyr started howling, and Harry let the dog's howls act for his own screams, the screams inside his head because Harry kept his teeth clenched on the towel. He couldn't move, couldn't fend off the pain, and he wondered if that were a good thing because if he could react, he would beat Snape off. He knew Snape was helping him, but the pain had reached that point where instinct overrode logic, and fight or flight took over.

"_Reparo Nervorum_!" Snape nearly screamed.

A flash of light blazed from Snape's wand, and Harry felt every nerve in his right hand burn.

He spit the towel out as he screamed with all his might, trying to make enough noise to get the pain out and stop himself from going mad. He screamed in agony, a raw primal sound that shook the glass of windows and made Vampyr howl in dismay.

Then the pain stopped. His hand was back to normal, and he could move it.

"Shh, shh," Snape was over him, using a clean towel to wipe Harry's face from tears and spit. "There we go. Just breathe. You were a good boy – you took that really well."

Harry leaned his head against Snape's arm and tried to stop his teeth from chattering. But he could move his hand and with some effort he could lift his arm off the bed.

"I'm good, I'm good," Harry gasped. "I can move my hand. Do – do it to my other hand."

Snape froze. "What?"

"I can take the pain – it doesn't last forever. Do my other arm."

Snape looked down at Harry. The boy's hair was damp with sweat, his eyes were red and puffy from crying, and he was shaking still, white as a ghost. Snape could feel him shake.

"No, there's no more potion to heal the other arm," Snape lied.

"Maybe you don't need the potion. I didn't feel anything change until that spell hit me."

"No," Snape leaned him back on the pillow. "I can't do anything more. You're going to lay right here and take a nap. When you wake up, I'll help you to the bathroom and then feed you some dinner."

"I'm not tired," Harry's eyes flickered shut. "I don't want to sleep, I just wanna . . . wanna . . ."

Snape pulled out a blanket and covered Harry with it. Vampyr had moved to the edge of the bed, whining slightly and looking up at Snape with a woebegone look on his ugly face.

Harry's new bed was bigger than his old one, and the boy was to one edge, leaving plenty of room. "Just this once," Snape told the dog. "Just this once you can get up."

He patted the empty side of the bed, and Vampyr leaped up and settled down beside Harry.

Harry didn't move, except to thrum the fingers of his right hand on the bed. His whole body felt weird – he could still feel everything, but he couldn't move. It was awful, but he was exhausted and worn out after the last spell. He didn't understand why Snape wouldn't get more potion and start on his other hand.

Harry was certain he could handle the pain, but Snape was so picky and particular about his potions. Harry gave a small frown, but he was already half asleep.

Snape carefully set the rest of the potions on the bedside stand. He tried to ignore the shaking of his own hands.

The look on Harry's face at the very end, that despair in his eyes as he screamed with everything he had left – it was the way the Dark Lord wanted the boy to die.

Snape grabbed onto the edge of the bed to keep himself from being sick. He wouldn't give into that terror – no, he would concentrate on how angry he was with Harry.

"I'm going to thrash you from one side of this house to the other," he growled under his breath. "Then I'll heal you up and do it again. You won't sit down without groaning for the next year."

His cruel thoughts helped. He focused on how he would punish Harry once he healed: a spanking every night, and chores all day long, and vegetables for every meal, and potion-making with every step done right and repeated until Harry got it perfect. Oh, the brat would suffer, suffer dreadfully!

Snape concentrated on his future torture and shoved his fear to the back of his mind. But the fear crouched there, watching him and reminding him that for all his courage and bravery, the boy was mortal and fragile. The boy might be a powerful wizard, but his good heart and impulses put him into danger. He would sacrifice himself for others, trying to save them. Someday he would die, and Snape would have to watch the life go out of those eyes just as the life went out of his mother's.

"That won't happen," Snape said to reassure himself, to push the panic down. "It won't. I'll die first, saving him. And I'll make sure he's so scared of me he doesn't take a breath without asking permission."

On the bed, Harry was asleep, his rising chest the only movement. Tear marks glistened on his cheeks, but he was fast asleep.

Snape sat on a chair, arranging the potions in a straight line and ignoring the pain in his ears that hurt from Harry's screams.


	3. Tears

The first thing Harry felt when he woke was panic. He had no control of his own body, and he felt sure he was in the middle of a nightmare. He was at home, but Vampyr was lying beside him, so that meant that something was wrong.

In the five years he had lived with Snape, Vampyr had never, ever been allowed on the bed. Harry had asked a few times, but Snape was adamant.

"You're a human boy and he's a dog," Snape had said as if Harry didn't know this. "You sleep on a bed, and he sleeps on the floor. That's the order of things under my roof."

Snape wanted to be the king of everything, and Harry had muttered things about despots and tyrants, but he hadn't let Vampyr on the bed because he figured that, when all was said and done, Vampyr really belonged to Snape first and Harry second.

But now the dog was on the bed, and Harry immediately realized what was wrong by the odd sensations all over his body. His right hand and arm he could move, but the rest of him wouldn't cooperate. He tried to move his left hand, and it swung up and smacked him in the face.

He had no control of his body, and the horror of that seemed too much to bear.

He supposed that at one time he had been this helpless as a baby, but of course, he couldn't remember that. His earliest memories started around age three, but they were hazy impressions clouded by the span of years.

He had often seen babies with parents at Muggle parks, and the babies seemed happy as they sat on their parents' lap, gurgling and sucking their fingers. A few times, he had waved at the babies, and they had responded by bouncing up and down and flailing their arms at him. Sometimes they smiled at him, and he felt better that babies liked him even if his own family did not.

And babies didn't know anything about life – they didn't know about being older and being able to talk and move fast. Once they got able to run, however, toddlers' first instincts were to run away from parents. Harry had once helped catch a small blond-haired four-year-old that dashed away from her worried mother. Harry had pretended to chase her, and she went squealing back into her mother's arms. The mother had scolded her, but the little girl had hidden in her mother's arms and turned back to watch Harry with shy, but accepting eyes. The mother had made the little girl say hello, and she had waved at him with a giggle before they left the park.

Had he been able to run, Harry thought his instinct would be to run as well, only he would run from Snape. He knew Snape loved him, and he loved Snape and all that, but the man had no bedside manner. Any time Harry got hurt or sick, Snape always assumed he did it on purpose. Snape liked to boss and bully then, and Harry suspected that was all incentive to make him get well as soon as possible.

He felt that his situation would have been much different if he had a nice girl looking after him. Yes, it would be embarrassing for a girl his own age to see him like this, but he wished someone could take care of him other than Snape. Maybe charming the box was Harry's fault, but he felt other people would have been more sympathetic to his plight. He had been stupid with Ron in the woods, but Ron had practically dared him to open the box.

"Come on," Ron had said, "Ginny would have already broken it open and shown me what was inside."

Harry didn't understand why he had had such a desperate need to compete with Ron's sister, but he didn't like the idea that Ron would joke later to Ginny about how Harry was such a pansy. Ginny wasn't even in the woods with them, but in that moment with his wand in hand, Harry had a desperate urge to prove that he was a man and that he wasn't scared of anything. It was all very silly, but it wasn't all his fault. He was doing it for Ginny, and if Hermione were there, she wouldn't have let him do something so stupid.

In a way, his problem could be directly related back to the girls, but Harry had no intention of telling Snape that. Snape didn't know about Ginny, anyway, and Harry planned to keep it that way. Snape would either rag him mercilessly about it or would refuse to let him see Ginny which was abominably unfair considering that Snape had been younger than Harry when he fell in love with Lily.

Had she been there, Ginny would be nice to him. Harry could just imagine her beside him, brushing back his hair and fussing over him a little, but in a nice way. She might even rest his head against her chest, which had gotten bigger over the last few years though Harry pretended not to notice. She might hum a sweet song and snuggle him close, rocking him back and forth.

Harry opened his eyes and realized, to his horror, that he was sucking his thumb. Disgusted, he yanked his hand from his mouth.

Vampyr cocked his head to the side, almost questioningly.

"You tell Snape about that and I'll have him turn you into a stone dog," Harry threatened.

He could not remember ever sucking his thumb, but an old memory crept over him - a nursery school with lots of bright-colored toys and another boy pointing and chanting, "Hawwy sucks his tumb, Hawwy sucks his tumb!"

He must have stopped then – children teasing children was always the best deterrent from bad habits – but the impulse had returned with this horrid regression.

Harry reached over and grabbed a corner of the nightstand beside his bed. The movement hurt, but he kept pulling until he was almost sitting up straight.

Most mornings, as soon as he woke up, he jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Once he came out, Vampyr would be hopping around and barking softly. Snape would snarl from his room, "Take that infernal dog out and stop making so much noise!"

Harry would take the dog downstairs and start boiling the water for tea. He liked to start breakfast before Snape got up because then Harry could have whatever he wanted. A few times he smuggled sweet rolls in from the village and had one before Snape trudged downstairs. Snape didn't like any sugar before noon and even then he took a perverse delight in restricting the amount of sugar that he put into food. Harry started shaking extra sugar over food when Snape wasn't looking because he didn't like the bitter, sour taste that Snape seemed to enjoy.

But right now, Harry just wanted to get himself to the bathroom. If he could do that, if he got himself all the way across the room and into the bathroom, he thought he could really do anything.

"I can do this," Harry told himself. "I can do this. I am not a baby. I'm almost seventeen and I've fought loads of bad guys. I've faced down evil, stared it straight in the face. I've kissed two girls already – I could kiss dozens of girls if I wanted to."

He grabbed one leg and pulled it over the side of the bed. He grabbed his other leg and moved it, and now he was posed on the side of the bed, his feet almost touching the floor.

"You can do this," Harry kept saying. "You are going to step on the floor and walk across the room. You are stronger than your body. You are destined to fight Voldemort, and you are destined to walk across this room on your own two feet. You're Harry Potter! You're the hero of the wizarding world, and nothing can stop you."

Harry pushed off the bed. He stood on his own two feet, proud and tall. He had fought and won. He was invincible.

And then his knees buckled.

"Oh, sh-" Harry didn't even have time to finish swearing; he tumbled to the floor.

He couldn't believe how much it hurt to fall to the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he fought against breaking into audible sobs. He felt immediately stupid because he had endured worse pain than this on the Quidditch pitch without tearing up at all. Once he had broken his ankle, and with Ron's help, he had hobbled up to the infirmary without revealing his injury to anyone else. He might have gotten away with it, too, but Pomfrey was such a nosy busybody and she wouldn't let him leave for an hour after she had healed him up, and then she told Snape, who showed up to raise a fuss in the infirmary.

"I'm fine," Harry had assured him.

"You'll be thinking you're fine when I break your neck for such carelessness," Snape had bellowed.

"No, I'll be thinking you broke my neck," Harry had retorted back, and Snape had asked Pomfrey and Ron to step out while he had a private word with our dashing hero who was determined to make himself the center of attention.

He had also broken his wrist about a year ago, and Snape kept threatening to have him taken off the team, but Harry couldn't stop from showing off a little in the middle of games. After all, girls were watching, especially a pretty redhead who cheered the loudest for Harry and ignored her own brother.

But the Quidditch pitch seemed a million miles away compared to lying here on the floor, helpless and hurting. His legs hurt, and his arm hurt, and his face had slapped the boards of the floor, and it wasn't fair!

To his horror again, he realized he was sucking his thumb. Yanking it out of his mouth, Harry wiped his slobbery thumb on the side of his pajamas and looked up.

The door looked like a mile away. Vampyr jumped off the bed and headed out the door with a worried bark.

But Snape didn't come in, so Harry thought that the man might still be asleep.

"I'm getting across this floor," Harry told himself. "I'm getting to that bathroom, even if it takes me all day."

He reached out with his good hand and grabbed a leg of the nightstand. He strained to pull himself forward, but he didn't budge. He pressed his chin into the floor and tried to leverage his torso forward.

After pulling for about five minutes, Harry realized he had moved at least three inches. He tried to imagine that the door looked much closer, but honestly –

A pair of black shoes came into view.

"What are you doing?" Snape barked at him.

"I'm trying to get across the floor," Harry craned his neck to the side to look up, but Snape said,

"_Wingardium Leviosa_!"

Harry felt himself floating up until he was eyelevel with Snape. Before Harry could say anything, Snape grabbed his shoulder and turned him around in midair. Then Snape pulled him down a foot, snatched up the hairbrush, and walloped Harry across the rear.

"Ow!" Harry wailed before he could stop himself. It was so awful, he couldn't stand it. He didn't want to be punished. He wanted to be loved and cherished and told he was a good boy, not spanked like a naughty little brat.

Harry remembered taking punishments and trying to be stoic about them; last fall Snape had given him a licking for skipping classes, and Harry had taken all twenty smacks of the belt without making a sound. When Snape was through, Harry had straightened, looked back, and said, "Is that all you got, old man? You hit like a little girl."

Snape had hit him with a spell that wouldn't let him speak for an hour. Still undaunted, Harry had grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down, "_I might not be able to talk, but you can look at my face and know what I'm thinking_!"

Snape had sent him to the corner so he didn't have to see Harry's face, and Harry felt slightly guilty for feeling a bit happy that he had become more than Snape could handle. After all, he was sixteen, and that was old enough to decide if he wanted to go to class or not. Later he did apologize for acting so awful, and Snape said he was forgiven but not to push his luck.

He would have given anything for that sort of stoicism now, but the tears welled up and he was so upset that Snape had to punish him that Harry felt certain it was the end of the world.

Snape spanked him again with the hairbrush.

"Don't!" Harry bawled. "Oh, please, don't. It hurts me. It hurts meeeee so bad."

"You shouldn't have jumped out of the bed. You could have hurt yourself badly."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll be good, really I will," Harry hiccupped. "I'll be good – please, please don't spank me."

Snape set the brush down with a sigh. He moved Harry to the bed and laid him there, face up.

Harry choked back sobs, swiping at his face as tears sprung out and his whole torso contracted with the force of his emotions.

"Stop it," Snape put the brush down on the nightstand. "Stop crying."

"I can't," Harry gasped. "You're angry at me, and I can't bear it. You'll be all mean, and I don't like you being mean."

"Harry James Potter, you are sixteen years old! You're almost of age. You are going to pull yourself together, and stop blubbering like a – _are you sucking your thumb_?"

Harry yanked his hand away from his face. "No. I'm just – all right, yes! I can't control anything anymore. My life is over."

"You've only been cursed since yesterday evening," Snape looked very tired.

"Take me to St. Mungo's," Harry asked. "Just take me there. I don't care what tests they do. They won't kill me, and it can't be any worse than those needles you used on me. Take me there and then you and Vampyr go have a good summer without me."

At the mention of his name, the dog crept back in the room, clearly anxious and pacing from side to side.

"You're not going to St. Mungo's."

"Then give me a sleeping potion and I'll sleep until this curse ends."

"No, I will not," Snape crossed his arms. "You are not taking the coward's way out."

"I was crying while you spanked me, then sucking my thumb. I think the coward thing is a moot point by now. I'm a coward, and I don't want to deal with any of this."

"Then that should be a good reminder for you not to be so naughty again."

"Can't I just be left alone?" Harry looked up at the ceiling.

"No, you can't," Snape began unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. "I'm about to help you to the bathroom and then you're getting a bath and coming back to bed so I can feed you breakfast. You were sound asleep last night so I didn't wake you for supper."

"Could my life be more embarrassing?" Harry's bottom lip began to pooch out.

"I could mash your food up and put it in a baby's bottle," Snape suggested.

Harry glared daggers at him. "You'll pay for this later, Snape."

"_Wingardium Leviosa_," Snape levitated him. "You better watch yourself, my boy, or I'll post photos of you sucking your thumb all over Hogwarts. And I'll put you in those bunny pajamas again."

"There's not a chance that I can still fit in them. And you already enlarged them once."

"Then I'll shrink you," Snape threatened as he floated Harry into the bathroom. "You'd be easier to manage if you were the size of a five-year-old."

"You do that and I'm running away the first chance I get."

"You are trying my patience," Snape said, and he launched into lecture mood while he got Harry situated. When he stepped out to give the boy some privacy, Snape kept up the lecture, and he continued it as he filled the tub with hot water and got Harry in, vanishing the pajamas at the last minute.

"I can't believe that you of all people fooled around with magic," Snape continued from the hallway where he left the door half open to make sure Harry didn't drown himself. "On the first day of school, when you were in first year, I told you not to engage in silly wand waving."

"You told us that potions were the be-all, end-all of a wizard," Harry answered back, leaning against the tub and enjoying the hot water before he started washing. "If they were, there would be a potion to combat this."

Snape leaned his head into the doorway. "I told you I ran out. I had more of the potion at Hogwarts –"

"But I broke it. Right, of course, everything is my fault."

"If you start crying in that tub, I'll come in and give you a real spanking."

"You're evil," Harry pouted. "I want a new caretaker. At least Madame Pomfrey doesn't make me feel bad about myself."

"Do you listen to her better than you listen to me?" Snape demanded.

Well, no, he didn't. Pomfrey was so fussy and kept saying he was delicate, and Harry felt justified in engaging in brutal Quidditch acts to prove he was not delicate. He was almost a man, not some frail child that had to be carried around.

To his chagrin, the bath wore him out, and Harry was glad to get back in bed, wearing a new pair of pajamas and propped up on the pillows. He was sleepy and drowsy, but he had already made up his mind that he was not letting Snape feed him when he had one good working hand.

When Snape came back up with a tray of breakfast, Harry wanted to hurl the food in the man's face. It wasn't normal food like Harry usually ate, but thin porridge, fruit cut up into tiny pieces, and a cup of milk.

"I want real food," Harry complained.

"Your teeth will be too sore to eat anything hard," Snape set the tray on the night stand.

Harry ran his tongue over his teeth and gently closed his mouth together. His jaw was a little sore and achy, and the idea of chewing something hard did not appeal to him.

"Give me the spoon – I can feed myself."

Snape tried to hold the bowl for him, and Harry slowly raised the spoon up. His hand worked, but his mouth had forgotten how to close around a spoon, and he dropped it, spilling porridge all over the bed.

Snape said nothing. He put the bowl to the side and preformed a cleaning charm on the bed. Then he took the bowl and got a spoonful of the pale food up on the spoon.

"I don't want any," Harry turned his head away.

"You are going to eat this food."

"Or what?" Harry looked at Snape defiantly.

"Or nothing. You are eating this food right now."

"But –"

"Do you remember how scared you were of me your first year?" Snape's voice was sharp. "And when you first came here – do you remember that? Don't make me go back to being that Snape."

He expected Harry to nod and then grudgingly take the food. But instead Harry burst into tears.

"Please don't be mean!"

Snape felt his sanity slipping, and he wondered if a sleeping potion was the answer. If not for Harry, then for himself.

Eventually, Harry did eat the food. By the time he was finished, his eyelids were creeping shut.

"Sleep for a while and then you can come downstairs," Snape lied.

"I want Vampyr to stay with me."

"He needs to go downstairs. And then he'll go out for some exercise.

"But, but," Harry looked around with worried eyes, "I don't want to stay up here alone. I can, of course, but I don't like it."

"Once he's done, I'll send him up," Snape lied again. "You just rest and think about getting better."

Harry slept for several hours, but when he woke, he felt stiff and cranky. Snape gave him a book and Harry tried to read – thank goodness he still remembered how to read. But he was bored and twitchy, and even if this curse lasted only two weeks, that seemed too long to endure. Two weeks was 336 hours, 20160 minutes, and more seconds than he wanted to multiply.

Vampyr did wander up eventually, but Snape kept downstairs. He seemed very busy. Harry could hear him bustling around, and at one point he seemed to be talking to someone else, but the words weren't loud enough for Harry to make out anything that was said.

Snape came up at about one o'clock to feed him some lunch, but the man was distracted and couldn't be bothered to answer questions.

"Sorry I'm such an inconvenience!" Harry called out as Snape left the room, but no answer came back. Snape was already halfway down the stairs.

Harry lay on the bed, despondent with his whole body aching. He wanted to be rolled to his side, and he felt sure that he had bruises from his earlier fall, but of course, Snape didn't care about him.

No one cared about him. He would die on this bed, and only Vampyr would feel sorry.

Harry must have slept some after that because when he looked around later it was late afternoon outside.

"All right," Snape came into his room, holding a small trunk, "It's all arranged."

Harry looked away, determined not to give Snape the satisfaction of asking what had been arranged.

"We are leaving tonight," Snape went over to the bureau and started putting Harry's clothes in the trunk. "The Knight Bus will pick us up at eight, and we'll have about a four hour ride, they thought. We're going on holiday."

Harry looked back at Snape. "Holiday? To where?"

"The seaside," Snape started in on the second drawer. "I found a lovely resort area that caters to the – um – recovering. All Muggles of course, but it should be just the place for us to spend a nice, quiet holiday without any distraction."

"The seaside?" Harry exploded. "What are we going to do at the seaside? I can't even walk."

"Oh, I special-ordered a wheelchair for you. I've been making magical alternations on it so we can move about. I plan to tell people that you were in a dreadful accident and you are making steady progress towards recovery or something along those lines. There'll be tons of other invalids – I mean, people recovering there and a good number of the elderly, so I imagine you won't attract much attention."

Harry's mouth dropped open in horror.

"Do you have a pair of bathing trunks around?" Snape glanced over the bottom drawer. "I've made arrangements for you to have salt-water baths every day. I imagine they have wheelchair ramps or Muggle lifts or porters to carry you around. Thank goodness you're still thin or you might need two large fellows to cart you about. If you become too difficult, I can always hire a nurse to help look after you."

Of everything that had happened to him in Snape's house, Harry was absolutely sure that this new development had to be the worst.

"Oh, don't worry," Snape assured him. "I won't mind modifying her memory once we're done there. A Muggle nurse has to be less bother than Pomfrey though Dumbledore suggested taking her along."

"You talked to Dumbledore?"

"Yes, and he promised to extend our holiday into the start of the new term if we needed it. Everyone had been quite accommodating. Do you want me to order new undershorts for you or are you comfortable being seen in your old ones? I'm sure it won't matter – those nurses must see people all the time who look worse than you."

For the umpteenth time that day, Harry felt like bursting into tears. But he rallied his courage up to inform Snape that he was not going to any seaside, even if it was the last thing he didn't do.


	4. Travels and Tricking

"I am not going to the seaside," Harry announced. He tried to crane his head to see what Snape was doing in the kitchen. The wheelchair was situated in front of the open door where the warm summer light was pouring in, twilight still hours off.

"I'm not!" Harry called over his shoulder. "You can't make me. That's cruel, it's evil, it's barbaric. I'm not getting on that bus – I'll scream my head off if you try to take me out there."

"Won't that be annoying," Snape swept by and dropped a basket of food on Harry's lap. "Hold that."

Harry considered smashing the basket on the floor, but he looped his good arm around it. He had already tried fumbling with the brakes, but Snape had charmed the chair to lock from the back where Harry couldn't quite reach.

"The seaside," Harry groused. "The seaside like this is some – some Victorian novel. I am not an invalid. They don't even call people invalids anymore. I won't be called an invalid, not by you, you – you evil, greasy – come back here so I can see you."

Snape leaned around the corner. "Do you want to take any school books? I'll charm them so the Muggles can't see them."

"No, I don't want any books. I'm not speaking to you."

"Now that will be a vast improvement."

Harry snarled and scowled, but of course Snape wasn't looking. Vampyr came up to Harry and rested his snout on Harry's knee, looking sad.

"We can't leave Vampyr behind," Harry said. "He needs us. Aw, look at him. We can't go and leave him."

Snape came into the room and without a word he took the dog by the collar and led him into the family room where Snape kept all his potions. There was a soft swish of magic, and the dog gave a yelp.

"Snape?" Harry tried to twist in the chair. "What are you doing to him? Leave him alone or I swear I'll –"

"You'll do what?" Snape scoffed as he walked back, his arms full of a squirming black little dog.

Harry's mouth dropped open in horror. "Did you just turn him into a puppy?"

"Yes, he'll be easier to manage that way," Snape took the basket of food and placed the puppy on Harry's lap.

"I can't believe you did that," Harry held the wriggling puppy close. "He didn't do anything to you. You turned him into –"

A set of sharp puppy teeth bit down hard on Harry's hand, and he hissed, yanking back. The puppy tumbled off his lap. The puppy gave a howl and started gnawing at Harry's leg. Harry couldn't move to get away, and he pressed his lips together hard to keep from bursting into tears.

Snape snatched the puppy up by the scruff of his neck and gave him a sharp shake. "No! You don't bite Harry. No biting."

He shook the dog again and then placed him back on Harry's lap. The puppy tried to stay calm, but he bit Harry's hand again. It wasn't as hard, and Harry tried to keep from wincing, but Snape saw, of course.

Snape snatched the puppy again, shook him, and then smacked him twice on his rear. The tiny puppy yelped.

"Don't," Harry said. "He's just a baby. He doesn't know any better."

"He has to be trained," Snape said. "He remembers everything, but he's fighting against puppy instincts."

"How do you know what he feels?"

Snape gave him a look that said to behave and stop causing problems, and he put the puppy back on Harry's lap. "No biting," Snape placed a warning hand on the puppy's squirming rear-end.

Vampyr went for Harry's hand again, but this time he nuzzled gently, snuggling against Harry's side in eager affection.

"There you go," Snape nodded. "A little discipline and a firm hand – always does the trick."

He was so condescending and self-satisfied that Harry considered poking the puppy until the dog bit him again, thus proving Snape and his parenting skills entirely wrong.

"We're all ready," Snape glanced at the hall clock. "Here you go. Drink this."

Harry loosened his hand around the puppy to take the vial that Snape held out. "Make the nightmare stop." Harry tossed back the potion with a grimace. He closed his eyes and then opened them. "Nope, still here."

"Very funny," Snape took the exact same vial out and downed the potion without expression. "Aren't you going to ask what this potion is for?"

"Is it to disguise our true identities from everyone else?"

Snape's mouth curled in a slight sneer at Harry's accuracy. "Don't drop the puppy. I'll have to levitate you both into the bus as it is."

Harry wouldn't deign to reply.

Snape stepped outside and took out his wand, raising it up slowly.

Harry thought about trying to make one last escape to the backyard. His broom was upstairs and his wand was in his pocket. He could summon the broom and get up with one hand and fly away. As for the puppy – Harry wondered if he could balance the dog on the broom with his numb hand. Maybe he could put wings on the dog so Vampyr could flap along beside him.

The Knight Bus pulled up, and Harry gave a last groan of surrender. He knew he couldn't go away with Vampyr and leave Snape for the summer.

The purple triple-decker bus screeched to a stop, and Stan Stunpike leaned out the front door. "Hello, gu'vern. Right on time. Welcome aboard the Knight Bus."

Snape gave a short curt nod. "Get the baggage and I will get the boy and puppy inside."

"Will do," Stan swung down and swooped up the first trunk.

Harry felt a twinge of jealousy at how swiftly and smoothly Stan moved. Not until he was stuck in a wheelchair did Harry think about how hard being disabled was on people. And Ron was stuck in a coma and other people lived with pain and ailments.

Harry held the puppy tight and waited for Snape to help him in the Bus. In a matter of seconds, Snape got him up on the Bus and put back into the second floor in the back. Only a few people were on the Bus and most were on the bottom, watching the countryside.

The Bus started off with a jerk, and the wheelchair skidded to one side. Harry tried to brace himself, but Snape grabbed him before he could go too far.

"This bus!" Snape seethed as he kept Harry from rolling towards the stairs. "I have a good mind to go down there and hex him until he learns – Harry, hold the puppy."

"I got him," Harry held the squirming puppy tighter as Vampyr bounced around in agitation.

Snape parked the wheelchair, locked the brakes, and put a sticking spell on the wheels to the floor. Vampyr had started yapping as the Bus jostled back and forth, and his weak little howl went higher and higher until Snape picked up the puppy and hushed him with a firm hold.

"Smashing start," Harry quipped. "We should have just stayed at home."

"You enjoy the view," Snape sat down on a bus seat, still shushing the puppy. "You're going to bed in an hour."

"I'm not sleeping on those beds," Harry looked at a few of the loose beds that jostled freely on the floor. "If I get tossed out, I'll have no way of catching myself."

Snape made no comment, just gazed serenely out the window.

Though Harry hated to admit it, he was wearing out quickly. As he watched the trees sweep by, the tiredness of the day pressed down upon him. He had been trying to regain control of his limbs and the repetition of movements exhausted him, which was frustrating considering he could practice Quidditch for hours without getting the least bit sleepy.

The sunshine was still shining on the warm summer day, but Harry had to hide a yawn as he struggled to keep his eyes open. When he hid the second yawn, Snape put the puppy down on the seat and went to the back of Harry's chair.

Before Harry could protest, Snape had the back of the chair lowered and the feet popped up so Harry suddenly found himself flat on a cot-like bed instead of a chair. Snape covered him up with a blanket from the basket.

"Go to sleep. We have about six more hours' drive until we reach the seaside. The Bus has a lot of stops to make."

Harry wanted to fight, but he saw no reason to create a scene, seeing how no one had really given them more than a passing glance when they got on the Bus.

"Can I have Vampyr? There's enough room for him to curl up beside me."

Vampyr had already fallen asleep, and Snape gently set him in the crook of Harry's arms. Snape pulled the shade down on one window and reached for the pull of another when the bus screeched to a stop. Snape stumbled into the window and jerked himself up.

"Where did these imbeciles learn to drive? How is anyone supposed to sleep in this mess?"

As Snape stomped towards the stairs, grabbing the rails to brace himself, the bus started again. Snape swore, but Harry couldn't help smiling as he held the puppy tight. He found the jostling comforting despite its sporadic rhythm, and he fell asleep to the rough motion and the sound of Snape threatening to hex everyone into oblivion if the driver didn't learn to make smoother turns.

"Idiot Muggle teenagers can drive better than you drive this deathtrap!"

Harry smiled slightly in his sleep.

He awoke in the dark to find Snape easing the cot back into a wheelchair.

"Are we here?" Harry whispered, barely able to keep his eyes open.

"Yes. No, don't wake up. We're going straight to our rooms. It's still a few hours until dawn."

Outside, the air smelled of salt, and the warm air blew strong against the bus. Harry meant to wake up and take a look around, but he sunk back into slumber. He was vaguely aware of when Snape got him out of the chair and into a cool, soft bed.

He was almost asleep when a high-pitched whine cut into his blissful exhaustion. The whine turned into piercing yelps until Harry tried to cover his ear with his good hand and press his other ear into the pillow.

"Hush!" Snape was snapping somewhere above him. "You are not sleeping with Harry. You sleep on the floor."

The puppy kept yelping and scrambling around on the floor, pitching what Harry assumed was a puppy tantrum at the unfairness of life.

"I'll put a muzzle on you," Snape warned. "I'll turn you into a teacup."

"You already turned him into a puppy," Harry couldn't find the strength to open his eyes. "He's going to wake up other people."

Snape stalked over to the bed. He lifted Harry's arm and put Vampyr under it. Immediately, the puppy calmed down and nuzzled its nose against Harry before closing its eyes.

"Either of you smile, and I'll curse you into oblivion."

"No smiling," Harry muttered before sleep sucked him down.

When he woke, morning sun streamed into the room. He was alone, and a jolt went through him that he was in a strange room without anyone nearby.

"Stop it," he told himself before he could call out for Snape. "Control yourself. You're not a baby, even if you can't move. You can stop the way you feel – you can do that much. Just breathe."

Anxiety crowded at the edges of his senses, but he ignored it bravely and instead inventoried the capability of his body.

Right arm moved as usual. Left arm – nothing except he could feel his fingertips buzzing. Legs – no movement.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on drawing in inner magic, pulling it inside tighter and tighter and then directing it towards his left hand.

The buzzing increased, growing sharper and sharper, almost a pinch now.

"Come on, Harry. Come on. Come on."

He pushed hard with the magic.

The thumb of his left hand moved.

He grinned.

The door opened and Snape came in.

"I got my thumb to move," Harry said. "I'm feeling better, more in control."

"Good, good," Snape threw back the curtains, letting even more sunshine shine in. He was dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt with his hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, looking for all the world like a pale British tourist instead of a scary potions wizard.

"Where's Vampyr?"

"I enrolled him in doggy training."

"What?"

"Well, the only way I could get him in was to say that he was one of those dogs that stay with sick or elderly patients, and they asked if he would need training during our stay, and I thought, why not? He needs something to do while you go to your treatments."

"Come again."

"Well, his training consists of an hour of command –"

"You know what I meant! What treatments? I agreed to come here, but I did not agree to treatments."

"You didn't agree to anything – I forced you on the bus."

"You make me go to treatments and I'll – I'll scream."

"Very masculine," Snape sneered. "Shrieking like a little girl. These are treatments to help you feel better, make you stronger."

"I know what you signed me up for. Stuff to embarrass me, make me feel awkward, and probably hurt me. You're not fooling anyone."

"So dramatic," Snape pulled out a few sheets of paper. "It's a sea water soak, breathing regimen, hot stone massage, and then late afternoon nap. That's far from the worst thing I've ever done to you."

Harry thought back to the various hardships he had endured with Snape; surely a hot stone massage couldn't be worse than getting dumped into a cellar-dungeon.

"Really, Harry, you were covered with poison ivy the first summer you lived with me. You can manage a little salt water."

Harry narrowed his eyes shrewdly. "I want to agree, but I think you're about to trick me."

"Trick you?" Snape's tone was a little too innocent. "Why should I take any pleasure in tricking you?"

"The same reason you take pleasure in torturing me at every chance you get."

"I? Torture you? Dear boy, no. You're confused. My first concern is always your care and comfort."

"Now, we're just lying to each other," Harry grumbled. He raised his good hand up and rubbed the still fingers of his left hand.

"Oh, here take this," Snape took a vial from a suitcase and uncorked it.

Harry swallowed it, not giving Snape the satisfaction of making a face at the horrid taste. He was so tired of Snape being so smug and satisfied and just plan in charge. Snape's ego was always out of control, inflated and insufferable; Harry's main job (beyond school and friends and Quidditch and surviving Voldemort) was making sure he fought with Snape to counterbalance the man's temper and arrogance. Snape needed that or he would turn into an awful bully again. Over the years, Harry had learned to pick his battles, carefully weighing out when to give in to Snape's relentless dourness and when to protest with a raised voice and hot temper.

It was harder to put up a fight now that he was helpless and immobile. Snape had already won too many battles; Harry would have to lay down the law later so Snape knew the boundaries. Harry knew he would just have to wait out this invalid period, get better, oh and suffer through whatever punishment Snape would dish out for playing with the mysterious box, and then of course make sure Ron was alright, and then see that Vampyr grew up again. But after all that, he would wage a savage war on one Severus Snape.

A war to end all wars. A war that would rip apart their house and leave bodies in its wake. Well, not real bodies. And not actually rip apart the house. The kitchen had just been remodeled after a huge fight that spanned from Halloween to Christmas. That fight would be tiny, miniscule, insignificant compared to the battle royale Harry would unleash later.

"All right," Harry threw the covers back with his good hand. He was dressed in loose cotton shorts and a t-shirt. "Help me get ready."

"Why?" Snape shrugged. "They have shorts for you to wear in the water. Most of the time you won't be wearing more."

A knock sounded on the door.

"By the way," Snape said quickly as he went towards the door, "that potion I just gave you will keep you from complaining too much. If you're in real pain, it will let your complaints be heard, but your minor grousing won't be heard by Muggle ears. So feel free to grouch all you want – they can't hear it."

Harry jerked up on his one arm. "I knew it! I knew you were about to be an absolute wanker. You're going to pay for this, Snape! You're going to rue the day you met me. I'll make you suffer so much –"

"Yes," Snape grinned with his hand on the door, "keep that up. They can't hear any of that. There's no reason to make the Muggles suffer just because you can't your hands away from unknown boxes."

Snape opened the door, and a man came in with a wheelchair.

Harry's mouth dropped open. The wheelchair was the standard Muggle fare of metal and leather, but the man pushing it was huge. He had to be at least six foot five, maybe six. Enormous shoulders, legs like tree-trunks, a neck about the size of Harry's waist, and a heavy jaw.

"Morning," the man said in a thick Swedish accent. "I am your masseuse, Ivan. You are doing well, _ja_?"


	5. Treatment

Harry couldn't speak, he was so, so . . . enraged. Yes, that word would do. Enraged – such a nice, comforting word to explain his fury of feelings.

"_Masseur_," Snape corrected. "Not _masseuse_. You're male, not female."

"Ja, ja," Ivan nodded, still smiling. "So sorry. English is hard."

"English is hard!" Harry exploded. "It's hard?"

"Very hard," Snape took out a handful of paper receipts and pretended to look them over. "It's three languages combined. Latin, Greek, and Germanic. I prefer the Latin roots myself."

"Ja," still smiling, Ivan reached down and lifted Harry, bridal style, up into his huge arms.

That itself was unnerving enough. Harry had memories of being carried when he was smaller and magic had floated him recently, but to have an actual human lift him up, especially after his recent growth spurt, was a mix of terrifying and humiliating.

Ivan set him in the wheelchair and fiddled with the footrests while Harry glared at Snape. He considered making obscene gestures at Snape or yelling something horrid, but Harry settled for mean looks while Snape continued to read over receipts like figuring out how much everything cost was so important..

Ivan rolled him out took him to a lift and pushed the down button while Harry did his best to appear invisible. The Russian kept up a steady litany of little chat about the weather and the positive effects of a seaside resort. Harry kept his comments to mere affirmatives of "Yes" or "Oh, really?" but what he concentrated on was drawing energy into his arm and shoved it down into his hand.

The first place they went was a dining area where small tables held breakfast and other patients, most in wheelchairs, were eating. Ivan pushed Harry up to a table and began getting him juice and tea before fetching hot food.

The food wasn't that bad even if some of it still hurt Harry's teeth to chew. And the other patients were nice enough to him, passing him butter or jam when he asked. But the humiliation factor still remained because he was the youngest in the room (by forty years in most cases) and he was not an invalid, not really.

Across the room, another boy with braces on his legs caught his eye and gave him a friendly smile. The boy's hand was slightly crooked and shaky as he ate.

Harry ducked his head as heat flamed in his cheeks. He had been so bitter about his own situation of bad luck that he had never considered other people might live with injuries and diseases all the time. And those problems weren't even their own fault, though Harry was still adamant in his belief that tearing into strange boxes could not be construed as his fault and, more importantly, did not warrant any kind of reprimand.

Last spring, Hermione, done with the rights of house elves, had launched into the cause of ableism. She had lectured everyone within earshot about how wrong it was to suppose that everyone everywhere was healthy and hale, and she and Ron got into heated disputes about whether a healthy life was a right or a privilege. Harry hadn't really listened; he had been busy trying to convince Snape that he should be allowed to Apparate because all his friends with earlier birthdays had been allowed to. Snape had said no and turning that no into a yes had seemed more important at that time than listening to Hermione and Ron squabble. And Harry had a suspicion that their fights were just excuses to make up and snog in dark corners of the library.

And the parts of ableism that Harry had heard seemed confusing as he wasn't sure if ableism was the good thing to be endorsed or the bad thing to be changed. Were you supposed to pity people with disabilities or pretend like those disabilities didn't make them different?

Harry had been able to shrug off Hermione's crusade in the halls of Hogwarts where all students where strong enough to run up and down the stairs and to brave the rough days of Quidditch practice and Care of Magical Creatures. But here, surrounded by sick people, Harry felt the unfairness of the situation press down on him. It wasn't fair that everyone wasn't born the same, that young people got sick, that injuries tore bodies apart. It hurt his soul to see so much suffering that he couldn't stop or fix.

"Are we done with breakfast?" Ivan appeared by his side. "No reason to be sad. Good health comes right up."

Harry didn't realize that he was mirroring his feelings on his face, but he nodded and Ivan wheeled him out of the room. As they left, Harry saw the other attendants waiting in the next room, most of them wearing white uniforms and comfortable shoes. One young woman was in a blue short-sleeved shirt and tan capris, complaining to something to a stern woman who was shaking her head in disapproval.

Ivan quickened the pace down the hall. "Ah, we will avoid her. It how you English say, gorvon."

"Gorgon," Harry corrected. "The female monster from mythology."

"Ja, ja. We avoid the gorgon at all costs."

The next room was a warm sauna with large sunken pools of steaming water. Ivan took him behind a screen and hoisted him up on padded table. The Russian pulled out a pair of blue swimming trunks and proceeded to strip Harry naked and then pulled fitted blue bathing trunks over his hips. Harry stared at the ceiling, humiliated at being nude, but Ivan didn't seem to notice anything amiss which made it twice as bad, to just be a body lying on a table like a piece of meat.

Ivan didn't fool with the wheelchair; he scooped Harry up and carried him to the steps of one empty pool, lowering him to sit down in the hot sea water.

"There, now you soak. All the minerals good for your white skin, ja."

He hoped Ivan meant pale, not white, but Harry didn't bother correcting him. The water felt good to his achy bones, and he leaned his head against the stone edge and closed his eyes. He just had to get through the next few days until the wizard pox disappeared. Snape hadn't said how long they would be at the seaside, but the suitcases were small and Snape had only brought a few books.

All too soon he was being hoisted out of the water, rubbed dried, and then put in a reclining chair for the breathing treatment. The hot water had been fine, but Harry did not like having a mask strapped over his face and being told to breathe in and out deeply. It sounded easy, but he went too hard on the first few puffs that his vision darkened as dizziness swept over him.

"Ah, no fainting," Ivan adjusted the mist coming down the tube into the mask. "You breathe softly, like a baby rocked by its mama."

Harry would have glared at him but he started coughing and Ivan took off his glasses before easing his head back against the padded back..

"Easy, easy. Breathe like a balloon, in and out."

It had been a while since Harry had seen a Muggle balloon, but he remembered them well enough to know that there was no in and out with a balloon. Air was pumped in and if you didn't tie the end, it whooshed out. However, there was no explaining it through a mask to English-challenged Ivan.

Harry's breathing finally calmed and he blinked through watering eyes to try to see. Ivan had made no move to put on his glasses, and the world stayed blurry as he tried to pear around the room. Other patients were strewn about, but a young attendant paused a few paces away. Harry's couldn't make out her face, but she had vivid red hair. She reminded him so much of Ginny, Ginny who had grown so pretty in the last year that Harry had been all stammering and awkward around her throughout the two terms.

Harry leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, thinking about Ginny. He had approached her a few times, even getting up the nerve to ask her for a walk about the lake, and she had gone, but he hadn't been able to relax and kept stumbling the whole walk.

Harry opened his eyes, but the red-headed nurse was gone.

He zoned out for most of the hot stone massage, existing in a semi-conscious state where he half-noticed the heated stones hitting pressure points on his back. It would be an effective torture technique, he thought hazily, but most medical techniques were semi-torturous and scary even if they attempted to heal and repair.

Lunch followed, but Harry couldn't kept his eyes open. His last coherent memory was of Ivan carrying him to bed and tucking a light quilt over him.

Something poking his foot woke Harry up. He tried to kick but of course his legs didn't move.

Another poke.

"Stop," Harry murmured.

"Is that the manners the old bat is teaching you?" a female voice teased.

Harry opened his eye. Without his glasses, he could make out the shape of the red-headed nurse in front of him.

"Wha-"

She moved, and his glasses settled on his nose. His world came into crystal clear view.

In front of him, Ginny Weasley smirked. She had some of her red hair back in a clip and she wore a white attendant's uniform.

"I – I'm hallucinating," Harry said blankly.

She smiled. "No, I'm real."

"But how –"

"I was at St. Mungo's with my parents and Ron. When it looked like he would be alright, I asked Mum if I could go stay with a friend. Well, long story short, they think I'm with that friend and I Flooed as close to here as I could get and then walked a few miles early this morning. Wicked, yes?"

She crinkled her freckled nose and pursed her lips in a devious way, doing her best impression of a bad girl. Harry felt his face heat up and it was awful to be trapped with no excuse to go off by himself to collect his thoughts and then return and be cool about it all. He was almost seventeen and she was sixteen and it was all so humiliating.

"Do you like the uniform?" she twirled around. The white nurse pants were slightly too big for her, but the top wasn't quite loose enough to hide her chest and the curves of womanhood that had appeared clearly over the last year.

"Aren't I pretty?" she teased. "Though it's not quite the nurse's uniforms from those Muggle rags you boys like so much. I saw that magazine that Seamus passed around and got him detention for a month. You'd like me in a short skirt, showing my knickers . . . are you sucking your thumb?"

Harry jerked it out of his mouth as his cheeks burned and he wished he could disappear.

"You are so bad," her eyes were wide with shock and delight. "If you weren't so cute, I'd tell everyone about this. If I only had a camera."

She leaned forward and smacked a loud kiss on his forehead.

Harry tried to think of something to say, to manage some sort of togetherness in front of her. Then he heard footsteps and the whining of a puppy.

"Ginny! Hide!"

Without pause, she fell to the floor and crawled under the bed.

The door opened and Snape came in, holding Vampyr. "Oh, you're awake. Now you can start griping about how dreadful your day was. Let's hear it."

"Uh," Harry tried to think.

Vampyr started giving short barks, squirming furiously.

"What's wrong with you?" Snape held him up as the puppy tried to get down. "Harry's fine."

The puppy kept barking towards the direction of the bed.

"Quiet. Oh, fine, go see what crumbs are under the bed." Snape began to put him down, but Harry yelped,

"No! No, let me have him. Give him to me."

Snape blinked at his frantic tone, and Harry added,

"Someone down the hall came in and said he couldn't listen to our puppy bark for another second and he would report us."

Snape paused but Harry thrust his good hand out insistently, and Snape relented, putting the writhing puppy in Harry's lap. The dog kept trying to get free, whining and yipping. Harry squeezed him tight against his chest, pretending like he didn't know why Vampyr wanted down.

"Shh, there, boy," Harry said. "Just calm down."

"Obedience training indeed," Snape scoffed, going to the window and adjusting the blinds. "I would have gotten better results if I sent him to the spa and put you in obedience training."

"I'm trained enough," Harry's arm was starting to hurt as he held on to the writhing puppy.

"Hardly. I still haven't forgotten how you got like this. After I'm done with you, you'll never touch another mystery box again."

"All right, all right," Harry said hastily. Vampyr was beginning to calm, more interested in sniffing the aroma of the bath-salts on Harry than alerting Snape to the unknown presence under the bed. "We just have to get me back to working condition. Any chance you got a hold of more potion?"

"I told you no," Snape tossed a book on the empty bed angrily. "Stop harking about that. Your limbs will heal naturally. Did you get a massage?"

"Yes."

"Did he pay attention to all areas? Front and back?"

"I'm almost an adult – give me some privacy!"

"Watch it," Snape's voice dropped half an octave. "I am not taking any cheek from you. And what is wrong with that dog?"

"I'm tired," Harry inwardly winced at his whiny tone. "And I still hurt. All over. Can't you go out for a bit? With the dog?"

"You want another nap?" Snape sneered for a moment, looking like he did all those years ago when the adult-sized Vampyr had bitten Harry's shoe and pulled him down from the tree. But Snape just snatched up the puppy who howled pitifully, and they both went out.

After a few seconds, Ginny rolled out from under the bed. "That was close," she said with a breathy smile as if she enjoyed the danger a little too much. "What would have happened if he caught us?"

"One of us would be used for potion ingredients."

"Funny," she grinned. She sat down on the side of the bed, and Harry's heart started beating faster at the closeness and warmth. "Can you only move your arm?"

"That's all," Harry shivered a little, unable to stop the reaction at so much emotional turmoil.

"Are you cold?" she pulled the covers up, and he flinched at the feel of her cool fingers against his throat.

He turned scarlet at the touch and looked away from her, hoping she hadn't noticed. But he had forgotten that Miss Ginerva Weasley had grown up with six older brothers and knew how to make circumstances work to her advantage. Slowly, teasingly, she lowered her hand and edged back his collar.

"Ginny," his face felt like it might burst into flames. "G-Ginny –"

"Shh, shh," her voice was a mere whisper. She touched him, just under the hollow of his throat and drew a light, ticklish circle over the center of his collarbone.

Harry clenched his good arm to keep from swatting her away. It felt so maddening and good at the same time. He wanted to howl and he wanted her to never stop. His whole body was flushing, and the pleasure and agony that slammed through him so hard that he made a noise, a half-groan and half-whimper.

"I've wanted to do this for a long time, but you're so shy," she smirked. She tilted her fingers up, letting just her nails trail over his skin and Harry clawed the sheet under him to stay still. "I don't know what's worse – the fact that I'm torturing you or," she leaned closer, "how much you like it."

He made a strangled sound as she moved up the softness of his throat, tracing around his Adam's apple with horrible slowness. He wished it would just stop, and he wished more than anything he was brave enough to tell her to go all over his body.

With an evil smirk, she leaned down like she was going to kiss his neck. But instead she buzzed her lips against his skin. Jolts of electricity pounded through him, and he lost the last shred of control he had left.

He reached up with his good hand and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her down. She complied, kissing him hard on the mouth while her hands gripped his defenseless sides.

They kissed hard, forgetting to breathe, and she tasted like warm summer and exotic heat.

He was even bold enough to grope her waist, but when his hand moved down towards her hip, she slapped it away and got off the bed.

"Naughty," she shook her finger at him. "Now I'll have to tie you down and run ice cubes all over you to cool you down."

However, she didn't do anything but lean against the other bed, looking mischievous.

"Please," Harry begged the ceiling, "let me heal so I can get up. Please!"

"What was that nonsense about a potion?" she asked. "A potion to heal the pox?"

"Snape had a little of one, and he used it to help me get my arm back. It hurt but he ran out of the potion so I'm stuck."

"I'm not sure about that. I mean, there might be a potion, but to heal wizard pox, you just need magic. You forced the healing and growth back into the body, using the patient's magic and your own. It hurts the first day, but you've had it a few days so it's less hurty. Once you can start to move your toes, magic can do the rest."

"How do you know that?"

"I talked to a healer at the hospital. Snape knows, I bet, but I guess he likes you as a big baby."

"He does not!"

"Right, well, he probably doesn't want to see you in pain. It's a shame – we could have had fun sneaking around. He would think you were lying here in bed and you'd really be with me, walking on the beach, swimming in the ocean … sweating in the saunas."

"Ginny," Harry said firmly, "get over here. We're going to heal me."

"But," she moved back to his bed, "it will still be painful. I was just kidding around, teasing you. You have a bad case of it and I don't want to get in Snape's way. He went to a lot of trouble to get you here and if I butt in and ruin stuff, and my magic's not that strong, and we'll get caught, and I'm already going to be in trouble –"

"You're just scared of Snape. You're scared like you were the first year you came to Hogwarts, just a little girl all alone –"

She took her wand out and smacked the length of it on his chest with an open palm. "All right, let's do this."

She grabbed a clean handkerchief from the bedside table. "Open up."

He opened his mouth, and she stuffed it in.

"To keep you from making any noise," she gripped the wand and took hold of his bad arm. "I'll start and you tell me when to stop by spitting out the cloth."

He nodded, bracing himself back on the bed.

The sensations that exploded from his arm as their magic collided made him tense so hard he went up in a rigid arc. And unlike the soft tickling, there was nothing nice about the pain the whipped through his arm as feeling and agility returned, brought on by white, burning torture.

**AN: Sorry, this is unbetaed. My beta is taking a much needed vacation so I proofed myself. I apologize for any typos.**


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